


Signed the Letter, All Yours

by ladylapislazuli



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Getting Together, Love Letters, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27964832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli/pseuds/ladylapislazuli
Summary: Dear Felix,It will not surprise you by now, but once again, I am thinking of you.- - -While waiting in Dimitri’s chambers, Felix stumbles upon a box full of letters.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 41
Kudos: 240
Collections: 2020 Dimilix Exchange





	Signed the Letter, All Yours

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Jas/@baoxie_ as part of the 2020 Dimilix Exchange. I really loved your prompts, and I hope you enjoy the fic! <3

Felix does not mean to find the letters.

He is in Dimitri’s chambers. Pacing, restless, waiting. Unable to sit down, because that would be too presumptuous. Unable to quell the vibrating energy beneath his skin, the coiling in his stomach, the clawing feeling making its way up his throat.

Where _is_ Dimitri? Felix feels like he has waited a hundred years, though a glance at the clock tells him it has only been five minutes.

 _Wait for me in my chambers_ , Dimitri had said. _We can talk there_.

And Felix had gone. Thought little of what it would mean, accepting the key Dimitri pushed into his hand, climbing the stairs to the royal chambers with a stubborn sense of entitlement, practically daring anyone to stop him. Dimitri bid him come, so here Felix is.

Alone. In Dimitri’s chambers. In his most private sanctuary, surrounded by all of Dimitri’s things, right near Dimitri’s _bed._ Its curtains are pulled closed around it but imperfectly so, and Felix can see through to Dimitri’s sheets. They're still rumpled from the previous night’s sleep. Felix can practically see him now, legs tangled, face soft as it only ever is in sleep, sheets warm with the heat of his body.

He jerks his gaze away, snapping back to his senses. Damn it all, where _is_ Dimitri?

Felix forces himself to still. Takes several deep, calming breaths. He is Felix Hugo Fraldarius, duke of the kingdom and master of the blade. He can conquer this. He can _control_ this.

… He is kidding himself.

With a noise of frustration, he resumes his pacing. Standing about is agony. _Waiting_ is agony, but it is a pain more bearable in motion.

He has never been inside Dimitri’s chambers. He and Dimitri can speak just as well in Dimitri’s office, or at the training yards, or in any of the innumerable corridors and spare rooms the palace contains. Felix has never needed to enter Dimitri’s private space before.

But now he is here, alone, and waiting. His pacing is doing little to dispel the crackling energy in his limbs, the clenching in his belly. He is not paying attention to where he is going. Pacing like a caged animal.

Felix’s foot catches on something. He trips. 

If anyone were around to see him, it would be mortifying. He staggers several steps before he regains balance, swearing, hopping about in a decidedly undignified manner. Furious, irrationally so, but anger is easier to hold onto than the awful fluttering in his belly.

 _Wait for me_ , Dimitri had said. And for a moment Felix almost thought…

He shoves the memory aside. Turns instead to glare at the object that tripped him over. A small wooden box just sitting there, tucked into some stupid corner of Dimitri’s chambers but still intruding on otherwise empty floor space. It sits on the stone by the fireplace – little wonder, for it is blackened and singed around the edges as though Dimitri tried to use it for kindling. Felix’s trip knocked its lid open and papers are spilling out of it, dangerously close to the crackling fire.

Stupid place to put a box. What was Dimitri thinking?

Felix crouches down, still swearing under his breath, grabbing at the papers haphazardly. Letters, by the look of them. Mostly folded, but he’s familiar with Dimitri’s handwriting. Tugs the box away from the fireplace and starts shoving letters back into it haphazardly, folding and crinkling several before his eyes catch on his own name.

 _Dear Felix_ , the letter reads.

Felix isn’t thinking straight. Is too agitated to think. Were he in a reasonable frame of mind, he would put the letters back in the damaged box, push it somewhere out of the way (somewhere _properly_ out of the way), and think nothing further on the subject. Bearing his name or no, letters in a box in Dimitri’s private chambers are none of his business.

But he isn’t thinking. And Felix sees his name, sees the letter is addressed to him, addressed in Dimitri’s familiar hand.

Felix picks it up. And he reads it.

\- - -

_Dear Felix,_

_It will not surprise you by now, but once again, I am thinking of you. You used to tease me for my fanciful imagination. I have always had that tendency, have I not? Little wonder I find myself writing these letters with as much poetry as my battered being can muster, foolish as you might think me._

_You never liked poetry much, did you? Doubtless you would not appreciate mine. For these letters may survive, but my poems, I confess, go directly into open flame. I know they are dreadful. I have spent so much of my life with a weapon in my hand, or with my head full of facts and figures. I am a poor poet indeed. But I confess, I cannot bring myself to throw these letters away, despite their clumsiness._

_I can hear you now, scolding me for my foolishness. Conduct yourself like a king, you might say. Stop your ceaseless wanderings and focus on what needs doing._

_You are, as always, an infinitely more sensible man than I. But I must do something to ease the burden on my soul. And if these letters are the only available avenue, why, I shall allow myself to indulge in my more fanciful nature._

_My life is set before me, Felix, and the path is clear. I am a king, and my future is one of duty. It is a better life than I deserve._

_But I still wish. I still dream of the life we could have if I were a free man, just a man, without the burden of responsibility._

_It is my greatest and most foolish fancy of all, imagining a world where you could love me back._

_Yours,_

_Dimitri_

\- - -

Felix’s breathing stops.

He stares at the letter. Mouth open, eyes wide. Reads the words again, unable to believe what he is seeing.

Reads them over. And over.

Dimitri writes as though continuing a conversation, with all the confidence and surety of a man expecting Felix to understand what he is reading. Like he is just _talking_ to Felix, when they have had no such conversation or correspondence. Felix can practically hear his voice in this, and the handwriting is unmistakable.

But… _l_ _ove me back_ , Dimitri wrote. Which is impossible. _Impossible_.

Felix’s hands are trembling, he thinks. They’re trembling.

He sets the letter down. Slow, unsteady. In something like shock.

Impossible.

So Felix pulls another letter from the box.

\- - -

_Felix,_

_I saw you laughing with Annette today. Do you know how often I think of your laugh? It is the rarest of gifts, so seldom heard. High, when you really get going, and I know it irks you._

_I only wish you would laugh more. I cannot comprehend your embarrassment. Your laugh is like music to my ears, and I know you would roll your eyes at the cliche, but it is true._

_I wish I could make you laugh like that. Even if I cannot imagine amusing you with my wit, I should happily be the butt of the joke if only I could hear you laugh._

_Yours,_

_Dimitri_

\- - -

There is no mistaking that signature. No mistaking the meaning, though Felix can scarcely believe it.

It cannot… it _cannot_ be real. His heart is in his throat. His breathing, once he resumes it, so unsteady it is painful.

And yet here he is on the floor of Dimitri’s chambers, the cold hard stone digging into his knees. He can hear the freezing Faerghus wind howling outside, while inside the fire is crackling merrily in the grate. The world still moving, despite Felix’s being turned inside out.

He reaches, hand still trembling, for another letter.

\- - - 

_Dear Felix,_

_I do not know how to start this letter, only that I must speak to you. You left today. Rode back to Fraldarius, probably for several months at least. I do not blame you for leaving, after all I know duty better than most, but…_

_You would think me pathetic; I know that. I think myself pathetic too. Longing for you. Aching for you, when I have no right and it is not my place. I am the king, and my life is not my own. I have my duties, and I have no choice but to set aside my feelings for you in service of my country. It is what is right. It is what must be done._

_It is an excuse. I realise even as I write it. I tell myself that I am being dutiful, even virtuous, when there is no virtue in me at all. I am a weak and selfish man, and if I thought there was even a chance…_

_But you left. You barely raised a hand to me as you rode out, though you embraced Annette and Sylvain before going._

\- - -

Did he? Felix does not remember.

\- - -

_I barely have the right to call you friend, I know that. No right to ask or even wish for more. You stood by me during the war. Stand by me still as we rebuild, though the task ahead is not easy._

_I did not mean to love you, Felix. I know it is wicked of me. I know you would hate me, and I have tried, Felix, I have tried so hard. I did not mean to love you so._

_It makes me the worst sort of coward, but I will never tell you. Not because of duty, no matter what I tell myself, but because I cannot bear to see the scorn written across your face._

\- - -

This one is messy. Written in a hasty scrawl, ink smeared across the paper by the careless brush of Dimitri’s hand. No signature, ending abruptly halfway down the page, empty space beneath.

Felix rarely presumes the feelings of others. But he knows Dimitri well. Can read his misery in every stroke of his quill.

“Dimitri,” he breathes, then jolts with surprise at the sound of his own voice. Realises where he is, and what he is doing. Sitting on Dimitri’s floor reading letters not meant for him to see, and any moment Dimitri will come striding through the doors.

Felix should not be reading this. Should get up, remove himself, speak with Dimitri another day when his hands are not shaking and his heart is not thundering in his chest.

He can’t. He has to know. He _has_ to.

\- - -

_Dear Felix,_

_I am so happy today I am almost giddy with it. We went riding, just the two of us, just as we did when we were boys. And things will never be the same but you smiled at me, Felix, and you will never know how much it meant._

_You say my name like no other, did you know that? There is no other voice like yours. No other voice that could bring me to my knees with three simple syllables._

_Dimitri. As I thought I would never hear it again. In your own dear voice, from your own smiling mouth. My name means little to me but from your lips it is like… I lack the words. Not a song, for you hate to sing. But I was sure you would hear how my heart leapt in my chest every time you said it. How it leaps still, with only the memory._

_Yours,_

_Dimitri_

_\- - -_

_Dear Felix,_

_Do you remember a few months ago, when you almost took a fall in the training yards?_

_As I write this, it occurs to me it is hardly an auspicious beginning for a letter. Perhaps you would be angry at me for bringing it up, and for remembering in the first place, for you were terribly embarrassed at the time. Perhaps you felt foolish. Perhaps you still do._

\- - -

“You think?” Felix scoffs, but it comes out too high and wet, even to his own ears. He remembers the moment. Saw nothing beyond his own irritation and embarrassment. Reads on, urgently, desperately, now.

\- - -

_I confess, both then and now, all I could think of was the press of your body against mine when I set you to rights. My arm wound around your waist, do you remember? I caught you. Pulled you up against me to prevent your fall._

_I am wicked to let my mind linger on such thoughts. I feel half-mad with it, sometimes. The line of your waist beneath my hand, the brief press of your chest against mine. Your hand coming up to catch yourself. You pressed it right over my heart. I was sure you would find me out, with how fast it was beating._

_Oh Felix, I am maudlin again. I remember it so clearly, the feel of you. I know it is wrong to think of you so when you do not feel the same. And yet I imagine it. Imagine what might have happened if you had not pulled away. Imagine… I cannot imagine you reciprocating. But obliging me. Indulging me, though you are not an indulgent man._

_It is only a fantasy. But I would have held you for hours, if I thought you would let me._

_Yours, always,_

_Dimitri_

_\- - -_

Felix’s face is burning. His heart is beating so hard it is painful.

Only Dimitri would turn a sensual observation into something so… innocent. So sentimental.

“ _Fool_ ,” he whispers. To Dimitri. And to himself.

\- - -

_Felix,_

_Here I am writing to you again, kept up late by the memory of your hand on my arm as you bid me goodnight. I should sleep. I have meetings early in the morning, then ride out at lunchtime. But I cannot._

_You do not touch me often. It is a mercy, for my heart could not take it. It is still beating too fast, even now. And yet I still wish you would._

_Oh Felix, I know you have resolved to tolerate me, to accept my friendship in order to simplify our professional relationship, for much as you might like to pretend otherwise you are a dutiful man. We have been making great strides, you and I. Repairing a friendship I thought long gone._

_But I know the truth: you can barely stand me, civil as you try to be. And it kills me, Felix. It kills me. Ungrateful wretch though I am, I still wish for more. I would still push you, given half an inch. Every time I see you, my longing only grows. I wish…_

_I wish. That is the crux of it. I wish._

_I describe these letters as romantic. ‘Pathetic’ may well be more apt. You would certainly have thought so, only a year ago – but there I go, wounding myself. You do not need to speak to hurt me, dearest Felix. All I must do is imagine cruelty falling from your lips, words you never spoke, yet they sting me all the same._

_Your real reprimands are always rather more intelligent than my false ones. You are a cleverer man than I._

_Dimitri_

_\- - -_

The letters are not dated. Perhaps they were in some semblance of order before Felix knocked over the box, perhaps not. There is certainly no rhyme or reason to the way Felix grabs for them, random, hasty. Snatches of time, of thought, of feeling.

But he reads, and reads, and reads.

\- - -

_My dearest Felix,_

_I read something in a book that made me think of you. An address: ‘O my love and O the light of my eyes’. You would hate such an expression of affection. I cannot imagine you ever permitting anyone to call you ‘darling’, or ‘sweetheart’, or any such term of endearment. Certainly not me._

_And yet I read those words, and I thought only of you._

_Yours,_

_Dimitri_

\- - -

_Dear Felix,_

_I just want you to be happy._

_Yours,_

_Dimitri_

\- - -

_Felix,_

_We fought today. And when I came upstairs, I picked up the box where I keep my letters and threw it right into the fire._

_I regretted it, as I am sure you can imagine. As I write this I am sitting on the floor with the box smouldering on the stones in front of me and a burn on my hand. It is no matter, though I am sure Dedue will scold me if he catches sight of it. The damage will not last, and I am long-accustomed to pain._

_I thought I could destroy the box. Burn it to ash, and so too the feelings I hold in my heart._ _But… I could not do it. I could not bear to let the letters burn. They feel like all I have of you, though I am well aware the only relationship we have is the one carried out in my own head. You do not love me. You do not despise me as you used to, but I am not fool enough to think you would welcome my affections, or to risk what we have. Your friendship is too precious. Your presence in my life too precarious to gamble with._

_And yet I might lose you anyway. We are both as stubborn as each other, and my temper is every bit as hot as yours, if not quite as quick. I hate it when we fight. I feel ill. I miss you already, and I swore an oath to do what is right by my people but sometimes… sometimes I think I would do anything, anything at all, if it meant you would love me. It terrifies me, that I am so weak._

_Still, I fought with you. I did what I thought was right, despite my love, despite the fact it would make you angry. But it terrifies me how much I need you. How I fear, even now, that you have left and will never come back._

_I am so pathetic. But Felix… Felix, I am so lonely. I am so lonely for you. You used to love me when we were younger. Why can you not love me again? What can I do to make you love me again?_

_Hopelessly yours,_

_Dimitri_

_\- - -_

Felix swallows around a painful lump in his throat. Huffs out a rough breath, because Dimitri is always so _dramatic_ about these things. Always leaping to the worst possible conclusion, as though he is a man easily tossed aside.

As though Felix has not tried and failed already. He could not do it when they were boys, and he cannot do it now. Tried for years, distrusting and resentful, but could not manage the trick of it.

Dimitri threw the box into open flame, then burned himself in his scramble to get it out again. That, at least, is an impulse Felix understands.

He reads on. Letter after letter. Thoughtful, maudlin and despairing alike. All addressed to Felix.

_Dear Felix, I am so proud of the man you have become._

_Dear Felix, I miss you._

A single line written on an otherwise blank piece of paper. _I understand, Felix. I would not love me either._

Felix takes in a shuddering breath. Sets down the letter and presses his face into his hands, forcing himself to breathe through the ache in his chest.

Dimitri. Stupid, infuriating, self-sacrificing Dimitri.

Felix can see him now. Sitting here alone in his chambers, writing his letters by candlelight, bundling them up and storing them carefully away.

Saying nothing. Not a word, no matter how it pains him. Never hinting, never implying, never doing anything to betray his secret to Felix. Resigned to an unknown and unrequited love. Sitting here in the dark of night and spiralling into fits of his own self-loathing, foolish, self-flagellating, _blind_.

Felix cannot blame him, not entirely. Felix has been much the same.

_\- - -_

_Dear Felix,_

_I have been thinking, of late, of the way that I love you. I write of it often, I know. But it is rare I reflect upon our past. We were at odds for so long, you and I, and I cannot help but feel at a loss for words. The love stories in novels tell nothing of the pain of my longing for you. They are all shallow infatuation, chance meeting, convenient device._

_They are not you and I as I see us – growing together, fighting together, a perfect complement. I adore you, yet I am not blind to your flaws nor infatuated with the idea of a perfect romance. You drive me mad, my dearest. In more ways than one._

_But I love you. Deeply and dearly. I love you lastingly. I love you with understanding of all that you are, of all the flaws that madden me and the strengths that inspire me. I have never loved anyone the way I love you. Somehow, I do not think I ever will again._

_Yet despite my devotion, the love I offer you is so cheap. I am not blind to it. It is cheap and unwelcome. Nothing more than my heart poured onto paper in the middle of the night when I cannot stand its aching. An alleviation of my own pain rather than anything that would make you happy. A testament to my own failings, nothing like what you deserve._

_But I would have you, Felix, exactly as you are. Even when you frustrate me. Even when I cannot understand you._

_That is not how the stories go. Not for men like me. And unlike the novels, I have no delusions of getting my happy ending._

_I am ever yours,_

_Dimitri_

_\- - -_

Felix exhales. Smooths the paper of this last letter. Feeling… something. Something impossible to name. Something that sits heavy on his chest, but does not hurt him.

His urgency is gone, now. His hands have stilled.

He sets the letter to one side. Still within his reach as he folds the rest back up and slots them into the box. Carefully, gently. Leaving not so much as a crease.

They have both been such fools.

He picks up the last letter again. Reads it over, running his calloused thumb over Dimitri’s familiar script. He stands as he hears Dimitri’s heavy footsteps outside the door, turning so that he may face him.

So that he may face _this_ , at long last.

“I am sorry I kept you so long,” Dimitri says as he comes in the door. Shrugging out of his cloak, shaking his weary head. “One of the knights –”

He stops dead. Cloak frozen mid-air on its way to the hook as his remaining eye lands on Felix, taking in the open box and the letter in Felix’s hand.

His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. As though he is frozen entirely. Rendered speechless.

He never intended to tell Felix. Did not ask him here to accuse Felix, either, as Felix had thought when Dimitri first made the invitation.

They are both such _fools_.

“Shut the door,” Felix prompts him. 

Silently, Dimitri does. He hesitates, then finishes hanging his cloak. Felix sees him take a breath. He squares his shoulders. Steps up to Felix like a man walking to the gallows.

An inhale. Another aborted motion as Dimitri makes to speak but cannot. 

He doesn’t need to, Felix realises. Everything that needed to be said is clutched in Felix’s hand.

“Did you mean it?” Felix asks. Has to, because these letters were never meant for him to see. Because despite it all, there is a lingering anxiety Felix has not yet laid to rest. Because all this time…

Felix had resolved never to speak of this. Resolved to conquer it as he conquered everything else, to make himself the master of his own heart. Setting it aside, not to be looked at, not to be touched.

Felix has loved Dimitri for so long.

He sees Dimitri’s throat bob. Dimitri’s head bows. Face angled downwards, avoiding Felix’s gaze, he nods.

Felix folds the letter. Stows it away carefully in the pocket above his breast. Then he reaches out, taking Dimitri’s face between both of his hands. Running his fingers over Dimitri’s cheeks, running Dimitri’s fair hair between his fingers, pushing it back from his face.

Felix kisses him.

Dimitri is still frozen, so Felix pulls back. Dimitri’s eye is wide, his chest rising and falling rapidly, darting his gaze all over Felix’s face.

“Dimitri,” Felix murmurs. Running his hand down Dimitri’s neck to where his pulse beats rabbit quick.

Felix kisses him again. Cups his jaw, tilting Dimitri’s head. And suddenly Dimitri’s arms are around him, one coming up to cradle the back of Felix’s head as he kisses him back, the other squeezing him tight. Dimitri’s fingers tighten in Felix’s hair, kissing him over and over and over again. Trembling, gasping. Disbelieving. Kissing Felix like it’s the first and last time.

It won’t be. Not if Felix has anything to say about it.

When Felix breaks the kiss, Dimitri chases him. Felix, swallowing, allows one more, just a bare touch of lips, before he pulls himself out of Dimitri’s grasp entirely.

Dimitri is the strongest man Felix knows. Quite possibly the strongest man alive, and yet he lets Felix go without a whisper of resistance, without the barest hint of restraint. Stares after him, face flushed, chest heaving, but his hands balled at his sides. Lets Felix go, like it is inevitable.

Felix isn’t good at talking. But with Dimitri’s heart laid bare, with all his longing within the reach of Felix’s hands...

“You said we should talk,” Felix says.

“... Yes,” Dimitri replies. Wound tight, even now. Shoulders hunched up around his ears.

Ridiculous. He’s an absurd creature, contradictory in every respect. As infuriating in his uncertainties as he is in his bull-headed moments of sheer confidence.

 _Ever yours_ , he wrote. _I am ever yours_.

“I’m no writer,” Felix tells him. Wills the right words to come. Wills Dimitri to _understand_. “I’ve got no romance in me. There’s no stash of letters waiting for you in my bedroom.”

Dimitri’s brows furrow. His eye searching Felix’s face. “I… did not expect there to be.”

“I suppose not. You know who I am, and what I’m like. You said so yourself.” Felix presses a hand to his chest, over the letter he stashed away.

He would never ask but he wonders, for a moment, if Dimitri would let him keep it. Felix would keep it where it is. Keep it in the pocket closest to his chest, secret and safe. A weakness, but one only the two of them would know.

“I do know you,” Dimitri says slowly.

Felix exhales. Stomach churning, but different now, not the same as when he came in.

He came in expecting to deny, and sneer, and scoff. Now…

He does not know how to say what he feels. How to explain all the years that have passed, or his own inaction. Does not know how to say the words Dimitri clearly needs to hear.

But he tries. He tries.

“It’s… you’re it, Dimitri,” he says, voice rough and unsteady, too vulnerable by far. “Only you.”

There are thousands of words in Dimitri’s box. Letter upon letter, full of his every thought and feeling. But these few, simple words are the entirety of Felix’s reply.

He is no writer, no speechmaker. But judging by the look on Dimitri’s face, he does not need to be.

Dimitri’s face lights up. Slow, like the coming of dawn.

Dimitri closes the gap. Reaches for him tentatively and looks stunned when Felix steps into his arms. When he lets Dimitri wrap his arms around him, and more than that – he holds Dimitri in turn.

Felix cannot help it. He kisses him again.

And this time, there is nothing more that needs saying.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt: _Seemingly unrequited love (but not actually!), preferably post game. Dimitri has resigned himself to never having his feelings returned by Felix who he presumes could never love Dimitri the way he loves him, even if they have been growing closer again (ex. Dimitri does not want to ruin the progress that they have made in their friendship, so he tries to ignore the way his heart leaps every time Felix calls him by his name). As it turns out, Felix has loved Dimitri for a very long time but has decided to never speak about it to him. How they manage to confess their love is up to you, whether it be because of a life threatening injury or sickness, a slip of the tongue, or something else entirely! Happy ending preferred_


End file.
